Apocalypse
by invocations
Summary: An old Sorceress legacy bent and broken, the other side of Apocalypse. Postgame, Rinoa, Quistis, and Selphie.


** Apocalypse**

They're wearying, I can feel it. It's the burden of changing history (pastpresentfuture), the recent events slamming into one another and pushing us down history's slippery slope. Love, friendship, courage for this mission—who would've thought? But to make the fatigue grind us down that much more is the castle itself. Every room is filled with _her_. Her cloying perfume, snatches of laughter and the glint of teeth. Whispers in the halls, moving sinuously around the opulent furniture. I sense these all the time- I wonder if anyone else notices it as clearly? But I know they can't. They only get a vague mindsense, a sort of uneasy feeling that they can't put their finger on. It's a rustle of black feathers through my mind and I know it's her. There's some things you just know, things you come to realise during sleepy, hazy days in a dim shell of a body, drugged thick with her honey-like power.

The monster who introduced itself as Tiamat raises a claw and the world burns burns burns Selphie screams then a hoarse shout (Quisty!) one foot after another I scramble away and all of us hone on the same idea. The healing magic washes over us and my mind clears. The edges of Selphie's dress are charred and I smell the sick scent of burnt hair. Biting down a wave of nausea, I close my eyes to search for a spell, just as I see a whip fiercely snaking past the edge of my vision.

I cry out when I find the quivering parcel of sorcery, stumbling upon it the way one trips over a stone. Serendipity, filling me with horror. It's hers. Traces of her, just like they said, the whispers circulating Garden. Tattered remnants, winking in the darkness with a broken smile. Just like they said. Eyes fly open. My hands shake and though I try to hide it, it doesn't escape Quistis's attention. Selphie, arms raised in the casting of a spell at the monster, is tired and her mind is too full to notice. I don't want to worry her, not now, and close my eyes once more.

I turn over the spell in my mind- not drawn, simply gained, an unwanted heirloom. An unsolicited legacy. But it needs to be done, even though I don't want to see my world turn black, illuminated with the lurid colours of her dark and terrible sorcery. How long have I had this, how far down has this been buried? I can't hide the fright spilling into my eyes as I turn to Quistis.

"I've got it." My fingers lift like a puppet's and draw a circle in the air as if it had been drawn that way time after time.

Darkness.

_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fithos.  
_

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lusec. _

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wecos.  
_

_. . . . . . . . . . . Vinosec._

The otherworldly chant echoes, cavernous, the voices of old sorceresses, new sorceresses, past, present, future. The voices layer and harmonise, swelling, creating a rich tapestry of a regal parade. A succession, proud and with heads held high, heavily adorned with terrible beauty.

_Fithos._

Sigils burn themselves into the ground around us with an evil hiss and I feel tears running down my face. Bright, fluorescent, lurid, like dancers glittering in a parade. The symbols flash— _new sorceress who are you not like us no the same the same the same she is like her join us dance with us you are like her like us—_ but I'm not like them! Clamp down the nausea, the hitch in my throat, the mind bursting brimming shrieking with the sheer number of chanting voices. It rises to a wail and I want to cover my ears, but I can't, I can't block out their horrible words and prophecies. The sigils dance (the way it's always been danced) to the beat of the chant and it makes me dizzy to see them, hear them, feel them, heavy and pregnant with their meaning, their history, their curses. And it's within me, just like they said. Traces of her. A witch joining the succession.

_Lusec._

A pure voice weaves itself into the harmony and slowly, delicately, the timbre changes. And its shining like a beacon, so fierce and penetrating that the discordant voices are overcome, their shrieking and wailing withering like a vine under bright sun. It's painful to hear, the voice lifting so clear and sailing so high. My mind stings with the effort and it clicks. The voice is mine.

_Wecos._

There are no longer any lurid colours shattering around us, no shadows cast by the light. The tears have stopped, dried by the all-consuming light. Pure, whole, holy. At the edge of my senses, I see Selphie gaze at the carnage with widened eyes that don't seem frightened. Quistis, watching the monster dissolve and drown in the light, a careful hand shielding her face.

_Vinosec._

The spell curls back into my head like a dog returns to its owner. White feathers rustle in its wake and I feel myself swaying from the movement, the rush of blood to the head. My head feels light, a balloon tethered to my neck with light twine and not much else. It feels unburdened, an old legacy reshaped and reformed to my will. Those traces of her will bend and break for as long as I'm around. The circles can be broken, and I am mine.

Quistis's arms wrap around me, steadying me, and I am drawn towards her. Her blonde hair brushes against my cheeks and I peek through them to the empty place where the dark monster once stood. She strokes my hair, understanding the significance of the spell from my dazed and awed expression. "It's okay," she whispers, comforting. "It's okay."

I chant that same litany to myself, not with the voice of one reassuring themselves of what is false or a hope waiting to happen, but with the wonder of a person who stumbles upon a fact and knows there and then that it is true, as sure as the ethereal voices that chant in time with the pull of the sea.

_Fithos. _

_  
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lusec. _

_ . . . . . . . . . . . .Wecos. _

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vinosec._

* * *

_Note: _I apologise for all the dots. doesn't allow any creative use of enjambment, so the dots had to do!_  
_


End file.
